Release of a new installment of Science Verification data

Jul 28, 2015

A new installment of Science Verification data is available. This release contains data on the following Science Verification targets:

• M100 observations of the CO(1-0) line in Band 3 with the 7-m Array and Total Power (TP) Array, along with an update of previously released 12-m data, demonstrating ALMA's ACA (7-m and TP Arrays) and data combination capabilities. The data is accompanied by a CASA guide that describes how to combine data from the ACA with 12-m data.

• 3C 286 observations of continuum in Band 6, demonstrating ALMA's polarization capability. The data is accompanied by a CASA guide that describes the calibration and imaging of polarization data.

• Reference images generated from the full reduction of the above data sets.

• Calibration and imaging data reduction scripts are provided as suggestions for data reduction. These are either in the form of scripts that can be downloaded and executed or CASA guides that can be followed. In each case, following the provided examples will produce the calibrated data and/or reference images provided. A user may wish to perform a complete reduction starting from the raw data, for example to try their hands at a complete data reduction process. Or, a user may, for example, wish to execute only the imaging script to try different parameters.

• README file containing a summary of the data and data products, plus any other important information.

We hope that you will find that the quality of these datasets is impressive, but please remember that ALMA Science Verification data is taken as part of Extension and Optimization of Capabilities (EOC), and we are continuously testing new observing modes. These observations are made using new equipment and software and thus may contain more idiosyncrasies than data released to PIs in Early Science.

We thank the large number of staff at the JAO and the ARCs who have participated in the EOC and Science Verification activities, observations and data reduction that made this release possible.

Reminder: In order to reduce and/or analyze the ALMA data, users need to use the Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) package. The CASA package can be accessed through http://casa.nrao.edu. Feedback on the data and on the CASA software is always welcome!